It’s been a crazy week around here at B&V. It feels like the Grammy performance on Sunday was a lifetime ago. But, when you live in a city with an NFL team in the Super Bowl, it tends to be a week more of bourbon than of vinyl… That said, I never watch the Grammy Awards. I never watched the Grammy’s when rock n roll was the still a dominant music form. I know my old roommate Drew was watching the year Springsteen won something for Born In The U.S.A. because I kept barging in on him and interrupting… as I’m prone to do. As I recall I wanted to go out drinking that night… Ah, college.

The Rock Chick likes to watch the Grammy’s. She actually really likes to watch the Red Carpet shows… she may be the Rock Chick, but she’s still well, a chick. This year, and more specifically last Sunday, I watched the Grammy’s because I wanted to see Billy Joel perform his first new song in 17 years (more like 31 years for me), “Turn The Lights Back On.”  It was the first time he was going to perform the song live and it’s a great tune. It was a stellar performance, well worth wading through all the other pop artists who I didn’t love. They even let Billy perform “It’s Still Rock N Roll To Me” over the closing credits. And while almost all the music Sunday night was most decidedly not Rock n Roll, it was nice to see Billy anyway.

While I loved Billy’s performance, the person who stole the show for me was Tracy Chapman. She’s another artist who hasn’t done anything in over a decade and a half. I was vaguely aware that some country guy had covered her great song “Fast Car,” but hadn’t really thought about it or heard it. Turns out the guy’s name is Luke Combs – you don’t hear a lot of “new” country here at the B&V labs – and his cover was a hit. So I’m sitting there waiting for Billy Joel to come on when suddenly… there’s Tracy Chapman! I sat up on the couch. The performance knocked me out! Luke was mouthing the words as Tracy sang along and you could tell he was as into the song as I was, which is cool. I was stunned and thrilled. Here’s a pic:

Hearing Tracy Chapman singing “Fast Car” really took me back in time… all the way to 1988. I was living in exile in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. It was my first job out of college and my corporate masters decided to send me down there. I had just graduated six months or so earlier and in terms of music I was a typical dude. There were the Allman Brothers, Van Halen and U2 on the turntable. The radio stations in Ft. Smith were more torture than music… Madonna, George Michael and Michael Jackson dominated the Northwest Arkansas airwaves. Although there was this DJ who played whatever he wanted from noon to 1 every day for lunch. I’d try and be in my car during that hour… it’s where I first heard Sting’s version of the Hendrix track “Little Wing.” I dug that version of the song.

I’m pretty sure that’s the first place I heard “Fast Car,” on that lunchtime, freeform radio program. I loved the song instantly. First, it was an acoustic guitar based track and in 1988, there was no such thing as an acoustic guitar. I had always liked Dylan’s folky stuff… and Neil Young’s for that matter. In 1988 it was all synth pop, dance music so Chapman was quite a surprise. Her gorgeous voice was right out front where it belonged. It felt like she was sitting next to me in the car. Here was this woman with a beautiful voice singing about belonging, human connection and escape via riding in the car. Since I spent most of my time in the car in those days and desperately wanted to escape from my situation… Well, the song hit home. MTV started playing the video too, so in my world of limited music from the outside world, I was getting to hear this great new song.

In those days, money was short and I only purchased an album after I’d heard at least 2 and usually 3 tracks from an album. I’d been burned too many times by albums with one great song and filler as the rest. When I heard “Fast Car” I was willing to take the risk on the album, Tracy Chapman, without hearing anything else from the LP. I drove immediately to the record store on Rogers Ave and bought the album on vinyl (and I still own it). The moment I dropped the needle in the groove and heard “Talkin’ About A Revolution,” it hit me in the lower brain stem. I realized this was a folky/acoustic artist – spruced up with some drums and bass – singing, dare I say it, protest songs. I remember being in a meeting where a wealthy company owner stood up in front and regaled us with a story about his swimming pool… for his thoroughbred race horses. The words, “Don’t you know, they’re talkin’ about a revolution, sounds like a whisper…” were ringing in my ears as I sat there listening to this guy.  Oh, yes I had found a truly wonderful artist.

“Across The Lines” was a beautiful song about race and lines drawn on maps in every city… I’m stunned I didn’t hear more Chapman during the Black Lives Matter protests a few years ago. The next track was the a cappella track “Behind The Wall” about domestic abuse. Tracy’s voice on that song is haunting. Now I’ve always been a sucker for a heart on your sleeve love song… and “Baby, Can I Hold You Tonight” was all of my young boy longing and unrequited love affairs rolled into a beautiful 3 minute song. “But you can say baby, baby can I hold you tonight… maybe if I told you the right words at the right time you’d be mine.” Oh fuck, who hasn’t felt that? It’s one of my all-time favs.

“Mountains Of Things” is a reggae-light track about materialism and a nice change of pace. “She’s Got Her Ticket” is another amazing vocal set over a bouncing drum beat. There’s even a little electric guitar noodling. It’s another song about escaping your situation. “Why not leave, why not go away, Too much hatred, Corruption and greed…” “Why?” has an infectious groove of an acoustic riff and asks a lot of important questions. “For My Lover” is next and is sung from the POV of a convict who killed… “for my lover.” I’ll do a lot for somebody but uh, murder ain’t my thing. I’m a lover not a fighter. “For My Lover” has that classic, acoustic, folk song vibe. “If Not Now” is another beautiful song about love. “A love declared for days to come, Is as good as none.” The song still reminds me of a woman in Louisiana. The album ends on another quiet, acoustic track “For You.” It’s lyric is short and sweet… I love the way it opens, “There’re no words to say, No words to convey, This feeling inside I have for you.” I could say that today about the Rock Chick.

I can’t rave enough about Tracy Chapman. It’s a sensational album with nary a bad moment. I remember taping that Sting LP I mentioned before with “Little Wing” on one side of a cassette and Tracy Chapman on the other. I was big into cassettes and mix tapes in those days. I was back in Kansas City over the summer and an old buddy of mine in college saw the tape and said in a stunned tone, “Tracy Chapman? Sting? What’s happened to your musical taste?” I just smiled and said, “It’s expanding faster than I can even explain…”

This is a record everyone should own and hear in it’s entirety. Seeing Tracy Chapman on the Grammy show the other night was such a treat, but it really brought me back to this masterpiece of an album. I recommend everybody out there pour something strong and crank this one… especially “Fast Car”… what a song!

Cheers!